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PHIDIAS 

AND OTHER POEMS 



PHIDIAS 



AND OTHER POEMS 



/ 



FRANK W. GUNSAULUS 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

iSgi 



DEC 12 1&91 )). ^ 




-^1^ 



N.^-^A 



Copyright, 

By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A. D. i8qi. 



CONTENTS, 



Page. 

Phidias, ------ 9 

Statue of Gordon in Trafalgar Square, 51 

Old and New, - - - - 52 

The Invention of Printing and the 

Reformation, - - - - 53 

Worms, 1521-1891, - - - - 54 

Flowers at Hougoumont, - - - 55 

Waterloo, ----- 5^ 

The Woman and the Fountain, - - 58 

The Day, ----- 61 

The One Humanity, - - - - 63 

The Cost of Saving, - - - 65 



Page. 

Love, - - - - - - 66 

The Divine Struggle, - - - 70 

A Memory, - - • - - - 7^ 

Life's Music, - - - - 72 

Lines Written in a Copy of the Poems 

OF David Gray, - - - 74 

The Ministry of Despair, - - - 75 

Contraries, - - - - 76 

True Love, - - - - - 78 

Fragment, ----- 78 

Passion and Principle, - - - 79 

Rainbows in Broken Waves, - - 79 

Notes, - - - - - - 83 



PHIDIAS 



PHIDIAS. 



Scene: — The Prison of AtJmis. Time: — About 4^0 B. C. 
Phidias has received his visitors, Aspasia and his own son. 



Welcome, Aspasia, to my prison here! 

Oft hath she welcomed Phidias' steps, my son, 

Where silver-streaming fountains blessed her 

flowers, 
And Pericles looked out on purpled isles. 

Ah! thinkest strange that on grey walls I see 
That sunset-night slaves paddled through so slow, 
When Anaxagoras spake gems, and thou, 
Aspasia, mused concerning things divine, — 
That night w^e saw young Socrates alone 
Stand on the wave-touched beach a-questioning ? 



10 PHIDIAS. 

'Tis true I learned through Polygnotus' eye 

The joy of color myriad-toned and pure; 

But that one night outshone his palette's wealth. 

Shells brought imprisoned orients ashore, 

And coral boughs o'er pale sea forests shone, 

As surges rose from lustrous quietude. 

Then the full West, incarnadined and calm, 

Blent with the sea; and every white-wreathed crest 

Caught fire, and gleamed with ruby down to deeps 

Unfathomed as sweet dreams. The reddened main 

Was still. It seemed gods quaffed ^gean wine. 

We stayed all night with Anaxagoras. 

He banished all save One God from our thoughts. 

The morning broke from streaming headland cliffs 

Oft chafed by storm and brine, let slip the net 

Of sunbeams spread along the whelmed coast, 

And roused the sea 'neath filament of fire 

Till, East and West, there foamed the troubled gold. 



PHIDIAS. 11 

Rememb'rest thou, Aspasia, that one night 

With Pericles and Anaxagoras 

The sage, — that night aglow with noon of faith 

For Phidias here? Yea, I am here for this: 

That I believe One God rules over all. 

Most true, I have been charged ere this, thou know'st, 

O thou, Aspasia, whom I wrought in gold 

And ivory, pure white, — Athene, there! — 

Charged with purloining their Athenian coins. 

Thy Pericles — thou lovest him, as I — 

Had warned me. '' So carve thou the gold," he said, 

" That when my enemies and thine accuse 

Thou canst, if need come, show its weight to them. 

So shalt thou meet revilers of our fame." 

Thou dost remember how they took me first 

To gaol. The trial came, and Pericles, 

Who saw me doomed, cried out: "One witness more!" 

They shouted: "Who?" "The statue," answered he. 

Then Menon, my accuser, dropped his leash. 

Yet to the Parthenon, like dogs enraged, 



12 PHIDIAS. 

Defeated of my blood, they clambered up. 
Did thy heart stir, O white Acropolis, 
When balances hung shining, trembling there 
Aglow with splendor of my unstained name ? 

How soon Greece may forget! Athens forgot 
That clamor of the day Athene shone 
In maiden majesty o'er happy Greece. 

E'en now, O fair Aspasia, it returns, — 
That day of the unveiling, sun-filled day. 
That one triumphant day comes like a dream 
And builds serene its grandeur on the flood. 
Rememb'rest thou ? The glinting lights of dawn, 
Rippling in radiance of flowing streams. 
Brightened the sculptured frieze, then slowly fell 
So soon dismayed from white intolerant, 
Entablatured and wrought with ancient thoughts 
Of gods and men to form the unity 
And perfect beauty of our Parthenon. 



PHIDIAS. 13 

I see my frieze upon these sweating walls 
More shining than on yon Acropolis. 

All Greece was there, — a gaze of eager eyes, 
A look proud and self-centered, such as beamed 
From her when Persian hordes at Salamis 
Crimsoned the gulf. Pride sat in every eye. 
Greeting the glory of my finished frieze. 
A stream flowed from Piraeus to the base 
Of the Acropolis; another stream 
Of joyous men, with beasts for sacrifice, 
Roaring and wildly breaking 'gainst the staves, 
Trampling the slaves and litters underfoot; 
A stream of women, jeweled for that hour, 
With unveiled brows and fine embroidered robes, 
From Archanse; streams purple with the glow 
Of fillets ; streams of bronze, for slaves thronged 

there; 
Streams of nobility and wisdom swept 
From villages and cities over Greece, 



14 PHIDIAS. 

Making a river like to Homer's sea, 

Winding beneath the height wherefrom shone fair 

And sparkled on the flood— the Parthenon. 

And then that hour, the instant in that hour, 

When proud Corinthian and Dorian 

And Attic Greek and strange Laconian 

Were one before a sight undreamed, sublime ! 

Their shout enwrought within its wealth of tone 

The mingled harmonies of blissful states. 

I hear it yet, Aspasia, yea, my son. 

Loud as the roaring of iEgean waves; 

Sweet as the breezes through their perfumed hair 

Who crowded near Aspasia then, my child. 

All of that one vast instant comes to me. 

What rapture for a sculptor chained here! 

I wake such memories in striving, oft 

Forgetful of my gaol, — and find the walls. 

Ah, that celestial instant! Zeus has none 

More sweet or more exalted in His realm! 



PHIDIAS. 15 

I feel e'en now the corded veil, and see 

The Grecian officers intent, and him 

Thou lovest, sweet Aspasia, Pericles; — 

See over all, behind the veil as yet, 

Athene Parthenos, — form breathing soul. 

And when I pulled the veil aside, so still 

That throng, I thought the naked slave far out 

Upon its edge heard sounds of Phidias' heart. 

And then the shout, the laurel Pericles 

Dropped on this head, white-garlanded with age ! 

But most that long and loving look, — the gaze 

Of Athens, — that whispered word, ^^ Aspasia!'' 

Whose wondering tones assured me I had made 

Athene breathe and speak, — a mortal form 

Glow and command in immortality. 

I knew not, O Aspasia, how he loved, — 
Nay, Pericles adored, — until that hour, 
That moment when with eager joy he placed 
The other sweeter garland on thy brow. 



16 PHIDIAS. 

Yea, I am here imprisoned, son and friend, 
As Pericles himself is cursed of Greece; 
Not, as men say, alone because thy shield, 
Athene, bears old Phidias on its front. 
Or Pericles, and I am thus profane. 
Nay! Greece, besotted by her rabble gods, 
Fond of the Bacchic dance, and fonder still 
Of Dionysiac orgies, shameless crimes. 
Grows weary of the mind all masterful 
In Pericles, who pities woman's shame, 
Sees woman's daydawn in Aspasia's face. 
And will not worship gods whom they adore, 
Forsooth, because their rites, unclean and base. 
Support poor, greedy Greeks through sacrifice. 
Whatever else has been my crime, these chains 
Were not, had never Anaxagoras 
Breathed his celestial truth upon our minds. 
My art has never w^allowed in their shame; 
My chisel never left a lustful trace 
Upon a brutish god aflame with wine. 



PHIDIAS. 17 

And so "an atheist," the whisper goes. 

Thy friend, Aspasia! friend of Pericles! 

Ah, had I with a million darics wrought 

Till pulsate gold shone in a swinish crowd 

Of gods, I had been free. But, rather, I, 

Who worship One, have wrought Olympian Zeus. 

To Elis Phidias went an atheist, — 

If counting many gods, and beast-like gods 

A mocking of the One God ruling all 

Makes Phidias such, — and there I wrought long years ; 

Thought through the plastic gold brought to my hand ; 

Felt through the ivory my chisel touched; 

Climbed high above Olympus, as I toiled 

With clamps and bars within Olympic Zeus; 

Wished Zeus had blood like ours to give for men, 

That day the ponderous core and frame of wood 

Were saturate with oil, lest they might change. 

While oil dripped down upon the marble black 

And made the Parian border edge of gold; 



18 PHIDIAS. 

Saw pettiness of men and thought of God; 
Ensculptured in my soul what hands like these 
May never mould; traced lines of power divine 
Outrunning fancies, kneeling while I dreamed. 
Oh, I have lived and wrought and wept and prayed 
In every chisel course, in every scratch 
Left by my file's burr through those lucent hours 
My Zeus Olympian found Him human form. 
I have compressed His thunder, felt His heart. 
There is One God, — Yea, and He must be good. 

If men will come in years to be, and wait 

Beneath that shadow, finding ivory 

And gold their minister or comforter, 

Then shall the whisper of the majesty 

And might in Zeus, proved true in echoed hopes, 

Make answer eloquent in human souls. 

Scarce came I back to Athens, when they said, 
Through an accuser: "Mould a joyous god." 



P HID I A S. 19 

I answered: "Athens knows me; I am old." 

Then my accuser, careless of the years 

Whose slow, soft melody pervaded all. 

Acquiring for me subtler harmony 

For quarry-blows or chisel-strokes of mine, 

Or ring of hammered gold, that wrought themselves 

Within the music of my troublous life. 

In the great name of Athens, — how it sounds! 

Cast an insinuating smile on me, 

And asked me, if I yet believed her gods 

The Dionysiac orgies eddy round. 

To carve a festive god, assured in joy. 

So happy in his laughing face, that men 

Of Athens, doubtful if her gods survive 

The thoughts of Anaxagoras, would look 

But once upon the moulded shape, then shout: 

"Our gods, behold! breathe immortality." 

What answer made I ? Thou rememberest. 
Nay ? I could only tell them: "I am old." 



20 PHIDIAS. 

I caught the sneer upon his gaze intent. 

For, like a punctured cloud, it turned to drops 

Falling for sorrow o'er my weary age. 

Those rainbow smiles, — shame that they dazzled me 

Into believing Athens truly sought 

My chisel's craft again. And so the spy 

Spake on, as to a soldier called once more, — 

The last, — to fling his life across some deep 

For Athens, — aye, for Pericles, my friend, — 

To walk upon to safety. Thus I said: 

"My past is golden treasure none may rob. 

What thief e'er snatched a sunset from the sky ? 

These Western mountains where my sun goes down 

Lie far beyond a river deep with years. 

No robber stems its current; and the glow 

Of jeweled hours unlost, that quickens far 

Beneath that singing flood, will ne'er grow dim 

Till every shining gravel in the stream 

Abysmal as my soul shall wear away. 

Ah, nay ! I'll sit me here and wait the night. 



PHIDIAS. 21 

'Ignoble,' sayest thou? 'Thou mayst create 

Another past ? ' I was a leader then; 

I could not follow now. 'Lead, then,' they shout? 

Calm, calm, my soul ! Let them not lure thee on. 

Mine eyes fail now. I miss the foe, and stray 

From points of peril and of victory. 

Nay, ask me not. I may but stay behind 

Or totter on, my stumbling feet assured 

Of this alone, that o'er the meadow's frost 

They leave the zigzag path of age. Some child 

Will strain to step within my wanderings, 

And lose his own straight course, and 3^outh's warm 

lips 
Curse age for leaving tears within the flowers 
Looked on by me, mixing the dew-drops sweet 
With saltness from an old man's brackish heart. 
I wander. But forgive me; I am old. 
'Tis best to turn my musings Westward now. 
The windows burn. My past is treasured gold." 



22 PHIDIAS. 

Then silent walked we on. I yet believed 
Athens was proud of Phidias. O my child, 
Let not thy happiness depend on men 
Or on thy chisel's sharpened edge. Base men 
May drown the plaudits of a vanished day 
In whispers; dullards blunt the edge so far 
Thou shalt not know thy dear-loved instrument. 
Well, walked we on past temples, groves, and streets 
Enriched by me, both silent, till he saw 
The harbor gay with triremes laurel-decked. 
Greeks filled the galley prows, the air with shouts 
Of "Salamis!" and "Marathon!" 

*' Bright flowers 
From gardens of a noble past," he said. 
"One never comes to glory like to theirs. 
Till, like yon three-banked galley drawn ashore. 
Men joyous camp beside him on the beach. 
Thou hast gone shoreward, Phidias, on the rocks; 
Thou dost believe in Anaxagoras." 



PHIDIA S. 23 

Then wretches seized me, dragged me near the 

groves 
White with my marbles. Yonder shone serene 
Athene Parthenos, at Elis Zeus. 
Soft on the Parthenon, a graven gem, 
Danced happy wavelets of the surging day. 
My frieze! O Phidias, that thou saw'st through 
tears. 

Its sweeping, lingering glory flamed and fell 

In shadow on Ilissus' green below. 

And then I shouted: ''Pericles, my friend r 

And heard,— Aspasia, what I heard not now, — 

Shall tell thee ? ''Pericles is doomed T they cried; 

And "Pericles an atheist T I heard; 

Then something stung my soul, Aspasia fair ! 

Thy name came hiss-like on the shadowed day. 

I thought of Socrates,— a sculptor, too, 
Bold questioner of gods and men below. 



24 PHIDIAS. 

Aspasia, he has hope for wisdom yet. 

And then I cried out in my love for Greece, 

"Soft-wooled and olive-shaded Greece, cry thou. 

O Socrates, stir throbs within her heart, 

Till on the honey-thickened wine she drinks 

Greece sees her shameless gods grow wrinkled, die, 

And vanish in the twilight Zeus o'erflows 

With noonday truth: There is Init one God, — He f " 

Now, prisoned here and praying oft, I die. 

Soul worn with weariness of blossoming. 

Eye, as I hope, of better Greece herself. 

Defrauded of the sight of frieze and forms, 

And emptied of the deep and solemn stream 

Of joy a man must keep within him, else 

He has no sure reflection of the skies. 

Our Athens, — not the Athens dragging me 
To gaol; the Athens singing songs from him 
Whose blindness turned his soul's sight on the gods, 
The while Troy's town and Helen's heart of flame 



PHIDIAS. 25 

Burned over seas and lands through lingering 

years, — 
That Athens lived too deeply not to find 
The wide place of the gods' evanishment. 
Son — friend! ye understand me, — he it is — 
Homer, the peerless poet, smiled and sang, 
Laughed as he dreamed, and scaled Olympus' hight, 
And left such vision of the nod of Zeus, 
It lived, until I wrought it as I prayed. 

They ask me: ''Who thy master ? Hegias old ?" 
I answer: " Homer," — and my critics smile. 
" 'Twas Hegias taught thee in thy docent youth, 
Ageledas, the Argive, trained thy hand." 
Aspasia, nay! 'twas Homer trained my soul. 
What hand is facile when the soul's untrained ? 
That breath of Homer filled me with the sky, 
Gave me the vision of immortal Zeus; 
His ardent song, ensculpturing and free. 
Wrought the great image, and I placed it there. 



26 PHIDIAS. 

Yea, we have lived so deeply, sagely here, 

I may not mould a smirking, gay-flowered god. 

Thought tears poor garlands off, and fancies flee ; 

Thought finds the world and life are truer far 

Than gods, — I mean the gods of festivals, 

The Dionysiac rabble, half divine. 

Half bestial. Life with men leaves gods to hate 

And sport and lust, or oft discovers late 

One God alone. The rest are human dreams 

Within His shade, projected follies thrown 

Upon the shivering dark enclosing man. 

I carved my Zeus, — for I believe in Zeus, — 
Carved Him in ivory. Would I had stuff 
As rich and priceless as the dream of God 
Men find inbreathing earth and skies and souls. 
I clothed with gold this Zeus. Would it were fine 
As are those breaths that float from some vast life 
Enfolding, surging through the flowers and stars. 
Yea, I believe in one Almighty Mind. 



PHIDIAS. 27 

Disciples we of Anaxagoras. 
I could not make Him smile, shape a huge grin 
To bless with smirking, base content the feasts 
Where life, — and life is vast, — grows small and poor, 
Where goat-hoofed satyrs yawn and swill their wine, 
Where foul libations drizzle down their beards. 
Where underneath the ivy and the thyme 
Life reels, then shudders at acarven urn. 

If I were Zeus Himself, I could not smile 
From some far distant, safe Olympian height. 
While men, — and are not men Zeus' offspring 

here ? — 
Wallow below, unsouled in passion's fire. 
Think ye a God, who rules the world for good — 
And all must be for good, if ruled at all — 
Can laugh at Phallic rites grown hideous. 
Or smile on beastliness in sodden Greeks, 
Or shake Olympus with His sport, when foul 
And crime-red fountains spurt across His gaze ? 



28 PHIDIAS. 

Nay, were I Zeus, tears, — God must weep at times 
O'er men, — tears would be mine; and so, sublime 
In piteous rule, I moulded Him. I would 
That I had dared to make Him sorrowful. 

Ah, this is true to mine own heart, though slow 
It beats: no Greek may see my Zeus august, 
And not lift up his head, straighten his thoughts 
To high emprize, shake from his robe his care 
For common happiness, and dare to strive 
Far toward the god-like I have there expressed. 

But Zeus hath duties. Aye, e'en God is bound. 

Bound by infinities, bound by Himself. 

Men are his offspring — Father He. He must. 

If He be God, account for us. His own. 

Men's sorrows, failings, agonies, and wrong, 

Zeus must know these, — the fight of wrong with 

right. 
And shall He thunder only — thunder loud 



PHIDIAS. 29 

Upon His far Olympus, when we fall 
And glut our lust and passion at His feet? 
"Zeus, hear me ! Hast but thunder when we cry 
With stains that burn and ravage in the soul ?" 
So prayed I till I dreamed He answered me. 

I moulded Zeus; was sure He must be good. 

Believed if He is good He must be kind. 

I carved my Zeus of ivory and gold. 

Aspasia, Friend, I even thought our Zeus 

Must sometimes yearn in pity over men, 

So yearn that He would save them from their 

wrongs; 
And so I wrought that mercy in His face. 

And Phidias now hath found his place, the gaol 
Of Athens ! What his crime ? Two crimes are his, 
Offenses not opposed, save in their fruit. 
Can he be guilty of them both ? The first, 
That he has placed upon Athene's shield 



30 PHIDIAS. 

The visage of himself with half-bald pate, 

And Pericles, a warrior helmeted ; 

And that Athene's face and form are thine, 

Aspasia. Now what signifies this act 

Of mine? This — this alone, that I believe 

Celestial things and things terrestrial are, 

In very nature, close enough allied; 

That gods have dealt with men, might live with them. 

Wear human story on their arms, and face 

Time's clouded outlook toward infinity 

With eyes contemplate, human as thine own. 

Thus have I humanized the gods, they cry. 

That is the surging of the flowing tide 

Against me. Sentiments have ebbing hours 

As well. Thoughts seem opposed, each one a foe ; 

'Tis but the back and forward wave's unrest; 

So is the second charge the echoed first, 

Lodged on the tongues of Greeks who see or feel 

Some refluence alone of moving thoughts. 



PHIDIAS. 31 

What have I done, Aspasia, son? 'Tis this: 
I placed thee, greatest woman, in the realm 
Of gods — a goddess. Thou, Aspasia, thou 
And Pericles in graven majesty 
Offend the petty idlers. This their cry, 
That Phidias makes mortality divine. 

They know not bringing men and gods so close 
Upon Athene's shield brought forth my thought 
Of Zeus, and left Him but a handbreadth off ! 
A handbreadth? Would that I might make it less! 
A heartbeat's distance is too far for men. 
The skies enfold their sovereign energies 
On great Olympus' top. I prayed to Zeus, 
E'en while I moulded Him in ivory. 
Or filed some dream of God within the gold: 
"Oh, let me bring Thee close to our flat earth 
Where swarm the cares of men, make Thy heart beat 
Through gold and ivory, till purblind Greek 



33 PHIDIAS. 

And fierce Barbarian alike shall know 
The awful goodness of Omnipotence." 

This gaol for Phidias now! what lies ahead 
For Socrates, the wise young sculptor? Gaols? 
More. Socrates proclaims the gods are One; 
And sometime that One God, whose thoughts of men 
Are kind, must speak to them. This in his youth, 
Poor child of Sophroniscus! Carving gods 
Scarce juster than the minds of unjust men, 
Scarce nobler than the lust-fiame of their dance, 
Is safer far than questioning the gods. 

This doubter, Socrates, philosopher, 
Trains with Euripides. So, tragedies 
Athens will hear, filled with philosophy 
Missed by the chisel's edge. His queries pierce 
The direst phantoms ; surer far their way 
Than any sculptor's tool. Still I believe 
My chisel point oft glinted with the truth. 



PHIDIAS. 33 

This Socrates talks much of life beyond. 

Would there were life beyond! Why should I live 

To die and then be urned, my dust too deaf 

To hear loquacious Greeks say as they pass: 

"There Phidias' ashes are. He died in gaol." 

Is all my gathered power to render clear 

The visioned beauty of a god or man 

Thus urned ? Is all the quickened light within 

To darken suddenly at Hades' gate, 

Proved valueless by death, e'en in a stream 

Of things as needful of the light as this 

We wade in, are a part of, trouble oft, 

To find our guesses proven rushlights poor? 

Is there no harvest from this life I live 

Worth sowing elsewhere? Zeus, it must not be 

That, as the wavering and blundering 

Of hands once firm, responsive to my soul, 

Witness the dying of my body here, 

I have no otherwhere for the soul's youth 

To carve or mould, in lines that perish not, 



34 PHIDIAS. 

These fresh, vast visions T see first, what time 
Life ends here trembling at the brink of death. 

And then, Zeus must be just. His shining chain 

Of worlds would fall apart if He were else 

Than just. He dare not let a sculptor die 

In gaol, walled by injustice, hissed as I, 

Unless somewhere His justice find him out 

In Hades' streets and call him to His feast. 

Athens hath prisoned me. I die in gaol. 

Hath justice no realm elsewhere where Zeus rules? 

If so it be that Zeus doth justly rule, 

This very Phidias Athens scorns to-day 

Must have a life and being there with Zeus, 

Until his wounds be healed, and new-stirred hopes, 

Rousing the living artist in old flesh, 

Find fuU-expressioned life. Nay, I must live ! 

Young Socrates hath spurned the sottish gods 
To worship Zeus — the One Transcendent Mind. 



PHIDIAS. 35 

This questioner hath wondered, yearned to ask 
If Zeus might not come near to men, or give 
Some hint or sure disclosure of Himself. 
Aspasia, Zeus must know how dark it is 
Without some light-thread stretched beyond our 

urns. 
Shall it not be some day He'll come Himself? 
And, if He come. He must live man's life through. 
Die, — can a god die in a world like ours ? — 
And die so in men's eyes, that evermore 
They'll live assured of life unkilled by death. 

These, day by day, in filing on the gold. 
These, night by night, in dreams of ivory. 
These, every hour I saw my statue speak 
To my tired soul the mystery and power 
Of mind and truth and justice, — such as are 
Beneath and over, through and round the world 
To rule it, — these, I say, looked out at me 



36 PHIDIAS. 

As, through a storm-drenched sky, night-worn and 

wild. 
Grey harbingers of daytime peered the while 
Hymettus, wrapped in olive-shade and plumed 
With chestnut blossoms white, stood welcoming. 
And these be dreams? Zeus, they were mine. Take 

thanks. 
Such hints of hope outshone my burnished gold. 

What is this ^^ word of God'' our Socrates 
Finds shadowy in the hot and blinding day. 
And bright as thousand suns consolidate 
When life is darkest ? Were I young again. 
Unchained as he, my file and chisel point. 
Obeying nimble fingers touched anew, 
Would think it out, or feel it out, in stone. 
The dream exhausts Pentelicus itself! 
Mayhap the last white slab of quarried stone. 
The last gold grain within the incrusted earth. 
Or some unborn brute's tusk aflash within 



PHIDIAS. 37 

The lonely noontide of a forest plain, 

Will yield to him who visions God himself 

A hint of truth so rare and infinite 

In stir of faculty or aim, that Zeus, 

Olympian Zeus, shall seem so crude a toy 

For men who played Him in their dream of God, 

They will do well to leave Him with that wreck. 

Cast on the silvered beaches of the soul. 

Nay, not till Zeus, or God named otherwise, 
Shall come to men as man, and live man's life 
Enfleshed, thus finding richer stuff than gold 
To cover Him, or manifest, — that day 
May my Zeus topple down. Zeus, hasten thou ! 
O Phidias, thou wouldst lose thy laurel leaves 
To know that ever here, where flesh oft glows 
With spirit's fire or festers with disease. 
Begot of crime more often still, Zeus, God 
Would surely come, enshrined, alive as man. 
Veined, muscled, and environed with this flesh. 



38 P HID I A S. 

Ah, dream like that would re-create the world. 
The fact would bind it to Zeus' throne of gold. 

Aspasia, son, ye think me mad in gaol ? 

One day it seemed my statue toppled down 

Half finished ; gold and ivory clanged loud 

Upon the close-laid marble floor beneath. 

'Twas in the raptured fullness of an hour 

That realized eternity for me, 

When high Olympus vanished as a speck 

From new-horizoned life all compassing, 

And petty fables of the happy gods 

Were lost within the grandeur I beheld 

In Zeus — the One God — God of earth and skies. 

''O Zeus," I cried, "art always dumb to men ? 

Here, like a slave, I toil and feel for Thee 

With painful stroke or careful touch. Canst Thou, — 

And if Thou canst, — speak Thou! Where is the line 

I crush through in the ivory and break. 



PHIDIAS. 39 

The line divine I quake to mar, or yearn 
To see, environing Thy features here ?" 

And when I turned that flowing line or curve, 
Making Him good and beautiful as strong, 
And saw the shine of something tenderer 
Than majesty of power, I thought of love 
And was afraid to strike again. ''O Zeus,' 
I cried once more, 'T will not break this line. 
If Thou dost rule the world by love, 'tis true; 
If Thou art else than Love, I will believe 
Thee false, and leave this lie accordant here 
With all I hope or love, and live by that 
In joy, since by Thine awful power alone 
I can not live; die as a man in joy, 
That I have dreamed Thee better than Thou art. 
Assured that somewhere I shall find the truth, — 
Love vaster, holier than Thou, O Zeus !" 

* H< * * ♦ * 

Still I believe Zeus must be Love itself. 



40 PHIDIAS. 

I could not change that shining line of Him, 
And that one line of tender majesty 
Made a new statue. All around its sweep 
I gathered other lines, until the thought 
Of Love's magnificence had moulded all. 
The stubborn tusks of ivory took thoughts, 
Like wax in midday; and the lucent gold 
Flowed round my vision in obedient streams. 

Then my achievement paled before my eyes. 
O, sudden cost of dreams to mortal men ! 

More coarse is ivory of textured white 
Than goodness throned above a world like ours. 
Gold — how it fades away to dross the while 
Love at an instant dawns within the mind 
And for long hours dilates unceasingly. 
Edge of a chisel — 'tis a blunt, cold thing, 
Tardy to turn, and dull in its response. 
Blundering dimly with a gleam of truth, 



P HID I A S. 41 

When Love's light-wafted, silky phantasies 
Float through a sculptor's dizzied brain, and ask 
To be left graven on his statue's face. 
Files— they are rough and stiff, or scratch too deep, 
Seem clumsy instruments and mar the gold. 
When Love waits in a thundering heart to glow 
On Zeus,— that Love enfolding while it rules. 
*'0 Zeus," I cried at last, "had I again 
To mould Thy glory, I would make a heart 
Within this form colossal, all of Love !" 
Aspasia, these are thoughts profane. My son. 
Go thou with Socrates. I die. He lives. 
My chisel glistens yet with hopes like his. 

Ah! Athens says my art itself is changed. 
I would not mould Athene Promachos 
Again. They grant Athene Parthenos 
Is grander far. But why this change in me. 
They ask. Athene Promachos equipped 
Spake welcome to the sailor nearing home; 



43 PHIDIAS. 

And, armed for war, she taught the warring Greeks. 

Power breathes defiant, militant, in her. 

E'er since her shadow bronzed the argent sea. 

And now, they urge, Athene Parthenos, 

Outrivaling that statue e'en in might. 

Stands beauteous, wearing crested helmet. True, 

'Tis half up-turned for peace, her shield at rest, 

Her shining spear aslant against her arm, 

Ungrasped for war, and Victory's form upheld 

Within the calm and radiance of her hand. 

Aspasia, son, I made them both, ye know; 
Wrought thee, Aspasia, in Athene's form, 
The peaceful goddess of the Parthenon. 
Wherefore ? Because the sea's lashed sides are green 
With grasses sprinkled o'er with dews alone. 
As once with blood-red surf hurled fast in war. 
Aye, son, forget not this: Peace is the goal 
And servile war must cease, or help to peace. 
To be discharged at length, when o'er the earth 



P HID I A S. 43 

Athene Parthenos, or He, or That 

Whose rule the world obeys, shall speak to men. 

Sometimes, Aspasia, it beseems this hope 

That woman's heart will throb its day-dawn here. 

And so I moulded Zeus compassionate. 

An atheist is one who thinks Zeus good. 

My Pan-Hellenic Zeus grew mightier 
Than Greece. I loved Him while I fashioned Him, 
Though it appeared He struggled from me oft, 
Looking more widely, as became the God 
Whose care of all men makes Him lovable. 

And yet I am a Greek, hate Persian arms. 
Did not I climb, a boy, upon the walls 
Themistocles began, completed now ? 
Has Marathon no echoes in my breast ? 
Thermopylae and Salamis ? Look ! Nay, 
These walls forbid the sight. The Parthenon 



44 PHIDIAS. 

Blooms like a graceful plant, its clustered flowers 

That frieze of mine, — the long processional 

Of Grecian years; and then, Athene's shield ! 

****** 

I am a Greek. And Anaxagoras 

Is Greek. But man and Zeus are greater far 

Than even singing Homer thought or dreamed. 

What struggle: soul with God, then soul with stuff 
I wrought in! Zeus Omnipotent is strong. 
And I was weak. I grasped the thought of Him 
And, like an all-compelling wind of heaven. 
It swept me on in thought's wild radiance, 
Until I dropped my chisel wet with tears. 
I sat me on an unworked block of white. 
My mind was darkened with intenser light; 
And then I wrought again till the line broke, 
Line sweeping round the hint I moulded there, — 
Hint of the bright serenity of Zeus. 
Didst ever feel, Aspasia, earth too small 



PHIDIAS. 45 

For the next footstep; that thou mightst step off 

The glistening edge of such a petty world ? 

So seemed the piled-up ivory and gold 

For the great line I circled goodness with, 

A line supremer far and lovelier 

Than that I left evanishing around 

The greatness of His power; for goodness is, 

And goodness must be ever greater far 

Than greatness. Zeus, shall Phidias e'er forget 

How Thy sublimer Self swept over him, 

And made impossible the dream he had 

Before he knew Thou must be good as great? 

They called my Zeus sublime simplicity. 

Greeks know the wedded bliss of words like these. 

Zeus is sublime ; ah, not the Zeus I made. 

Unworthy sculptor of the awful God, 

But Zeus Himself, the God escaping me. 

Those days I wrought to reach Him with my tools, 

And fix Him in the dull material. 



46 PHIDIAS. 

I only found the edges of my theme, 

Discoursed upon it through the plastic stuff. 

What might be said of God enthroned o'er all, 

If one could see by living in His life; 

And then, if one might train the purest gold 

Or whitest ivory, as molten stuff 

Obedient every fancied touch to keep ! 

O son, Aspasia, 'tis a dream too fair 

For such material as sculptors use. 

Zeus must have human flesh and blood like ours, — 
Such blood as flames within our Pericles, 
When the base East despises Marathon; 
Such flesh as quivers, tear-streamed, when the love 
Of a robbed heart leaps after death in vain; 
Such flesh as ours, translating in itself 
What nothing less than flesh itself may know 
Of all the earth and sky, of dream and deed. 
Of all the anguish-riven laughter here. 



I 



PHIDIAS. 47 

Of all the sudden light of something fair 
Whose breath comes o'er the boundaries of time. 

Zeus must have flesh! then men will say: ''Sublime!" 

So, straining with desire for Zeus to love, 

I made Him. Yet the uttermost I carved. 

Or hinted at, is but the nearer edge 

Of that supernal dream of Him I have 

When earth seems fit to live or die upon. 

For, if the day-blue hanging o'er this gaol 

Be not a lie, and clouds or javlined nights 

Be not more true than skies they fleck or hide; 

If the best treasure of our minds be gold 

Aglint with light enraptured for the day; 

If yearning be not anguish laughed at where 

Great Zeus, amused, plays with His thunder-toys; 

If Zeus has right to rule: sometime, afar 

Or near, that sky will open on our world; 

His feet will touch it, find our tangled paths; 



48 PHIDIAS. 

He'll wrap men in the glory of Himself, 
Live their life once and here, as God would live, 
Break through mysterious skies again, and make 
His straighter path, twice-traveled, theirs. 

'Tis said. 
I die, Aspasia. Love to Pericles. 
Go thou to Socrates, my son. Farewell. 



MISCELLANEOUS 



STATUE OF GORDON. 51 



STATUE OF GORDON IN TRAFALGAR 
SQUARE. 

O true Crusader of the tender heart, 
Who, through the clash of steel, felt every tear, 
And who, through myriad dangers crowding near, 

Tipped with God's mercy thine invading dart! 

Here, in the modern world's imperial mart, 
When the fair century grows old and sere. 
With stupid kings and laureled sailors here 

Stand thou, where countless human pathways 
part. 

Thou didst a true Crusader's aim combine 
With orient hope in Afric's blinding heat, 

And in a new Jerusalem enshrine 
Pure memory of courage in defeat. 

Where'er beleaguered heroes wait to die. 

Thy bannered name, O Gordon, lights the sky. 



52 OLD AND NEW. 



OLD AND NEW. 

Far o'er the Scheldt, whose waters innocent 

Erewhile were led beneath the thick-walled 
Steen 

To dungeons, where the mart3^r-fires unseen 
Grew yet more bright 'mid drowning cries unspent. 
Peals the hugh bell that Charles, munificent, 

Gave Antwerp. Oft, the cries of death between, 

Its clanging tongue has summoned weapons 
keen, 
When faith and freedom struggled impotent. 
Nay! In this straitened world's expenditure 

There are no wasted groans from any heart. 
Antwerp hath made the dream of freedom sure; 

And, close by red inquisitors, hopes start. 
As blood-red dawn yields golden noon and pure. 

New music bids it ring another part. 
Antwerp, June 15th. 



PRINTING AND THE REFORM A TION. 53 



THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE 
REFORMATION. 

The storied Rhine with castle-guarded shore 

Grows yet more silvern, farther from the sea, 
As toward its sources, urging rapidly, 

We read in paler light its deathless lore. 

The moon shone bright in Mentz, and more and more 
Fell on Thorwaldsen's sculpture silently. 
As 'twere the rare light of eternity. 

A message glad with hope the night winds bore, 

Speech of that figure echoed in our thought. 

'Twas Gutenberg, the printer, deathless dead, 

Who, feeling high demands his dream had wrought 
Within the texture of man's hope, forth led 

Beyond the one advantage he had sought. 

Saw more and spake it. "On to Worms!" he 
said. 



54 WORMS. 



WORMS. 



1521-1891. 

We are in Worms. The air is full of sound 

That is not music, save as deep discord 

Must soon be tuned when melody is lord. 
A thrill of hope besets the trembling ground. 
Here Rome in Caesar's time her fortress found; 

Yet not his Rome waits where her eagles soared. 

Here Henry knelt and Charlemagne here 
adored. 
Here pope and king, here staff and crown were 

bound. 
But now Calixtus sleeps ; the Saxon dread 

Is silent, while, with solemn step and mein, 
To the Imperial seat the strong man led 

Makes with one word the memorable scene. 
'Tis Luther ! All the past this present fed. 

The reaper he, — his harvest let him glean. 



FL WERS A T HO UGO UMON T. 55 



FLOWERS AT HOUGOUMONT. 

O daisy white with leaf of green,— 
A star of snow unbidden ! — 

Thou feedest on white bones unseen, 
Where life with death was hidden. 

Where is the blood of Frenchmen slain ? 

I'll ask the maiden yonder. 
A rose she brought with crimson stain. 

My vision passed to wonder. 

Waterloo, June 20th. 



56 WA TERLOO. 



WATERLOO. 

Far up from fire-glazed walls of Hougoumont, 
Along the roadway grey, through clouded fields, 
The breath of evening came o'er daisies white 
And bloom of gold, whose rootlets still are fed 
On bones of brave Hussar and fiery Scot; 
And, meeting balmier airs from Mont St. Jean, 
Sighed o'er the trench and passed the silent slopes,. 
Where, piled in death's confusion, lie the foes. 
Until, in common shout of Easter Day 
To come, the wild, discordant cries of war 
Shall blend in lasting melodies of peace. 
The ploughman gone, the beggar child at rest. 
The hurrying clouds above enfolded all; 
Then, forth, along the reddened road to France, 
A white-horsed rider, with Imperial Guard, 
Rode grimly forth against the solemn night. 



WA TERLOO. 57 

A flickering sword flamed toward Genappes, and on 
For forty leagues the blood-soaked land awaked, 
And once again was Bonaparte sublime. 
Batallioned legions rose to greet their chief; 
The shout, " Vive L' Empereur !" went up to heaven. 
Stars shivered in the skies behind the clouds. 
A shout of triumph thrilled sepulchral earth,— 
When, lo! his sword fell, and the firm voice spake: 
"This is a dream, as mine was but a dream; 
Mine was the afterglow of Caesar's dream. 
And this an iridescence pale. A corpse 
In foul decay breeds its corruption-glow." 

The visage faded, and I heard a cry: 
"Helena!"— then a vulture screamed above. 

La Belle Alliance, June 19th. 



58 THE WOMAN AND THE FOUNTAIN. 



THE WOMAN AND THE FOUNTAIN. 

''None understands me, though I strive and weep; 

My tears are streams of hope, and vanish soon." 
She sighed her sorrow to the heart of sleep; 

And nothing answered save a wakened loon. 

It flew in darkness, beating aimless ways 

Through silent midnight; yet the dull-eyed bird 

Told all the burden of her brightest days. 

She thanked the saints that e'en a loon had 
heard. 

On through the night, o'er tiny footpaths sweet. 
Up to the fountain streaming in the dark, 

With darker heart she climbed, with wounded feet. 
When, lo! the spraying silver stopped her. — 
Hark! 



THE WOMAN AND THE FOUNTAIN. 59 

"None understood me, though I streamed afar 
By day and night my crystal column high; 

And woke the thrushes with the morning star, 
Or made a rainbow in a cloudless sky. 

A searcher after snakes struck out my birth 

With clumsy stick, and killed a venomed thing. 

Would I had burst forth when some angel's mirth 
Thrilled to my depths, and I laughed, answering. 

Sometimes a year has passed, and none has come 
To drink, or wonder at my pearl-filled stream. 

Still did I listen to the bee's low hum, 

And throb with rapture at the cuckoo's dream. 

None understands me, but I understand. 

The sun weaves rainbows in my lucent spray. 
Moons haste their shining from the ocean strand; 

I am their resting place in night's long way." 



60 THE WOMAN AND THE FOUNTAIN. 

Then rose a chorus in that midnight calm. 

The birds were singing in the vacant shade; 
And forest flowers out-breathed a dream-like balm, 

And unnamed lights amid the shadows played. 

"Skies are above us, and God understands. 

Ours but to hear Him and His thoughts fulfill. 
He breathes the silence on the seas and lands; 

Ours the responding to His holy will." 



THE DAY, 61 



THE DAY. 

O many-colored day, 
Who wearest on thy head serene 

An orange-blossom crown, 
Who makest mountain summits green, 

And far o'er dale and town, 
Arrayed in purest blue 

Or softest cloud of white, 
Go'st sipping violet cups of dew ! 

The cowslip's yellow light 
Thy sun-path tells, where slow streams creep; 

And when attendant hours have fled, 

Thou liest down in couch of faintest red 

And gold-flamed indigo, thy marriage bed. 
O, sweet thy wedded sleep. 

Thou many-colored day ! 



63 THE DA Y. 

Thou wast betrothed, — a bride 

Swift hasting to thine own. 
None waited for thee, him beside; 

And now he hath thy crown. 
"To-morrow " is his name, long known 
By thee and Him upon the throne, 

Who led thee on. O fair To-day, 

Who gave thee all thy colors, — say ? 

"I found a rainbow at the grave of Yesterday, 
And for my marriage wrapt me in its colors gay. 



THE ONE HUMANITY. 



63 



\ 



THE ONE HUMANITY. 

All other hearts are beating 

In every one; 
This morning is repeating 

What yesterday hath done. 



All other thoughts are burning 
In each one's light; 

They only need our turning, 
As jewels in the night. 



I walked 'neath leaping arches 

In yonder fane, — 
A soul amid the larches 

That glisten o'er the lane. 



64 THE ONE HUMANITY. 

Always in walls monastic 
My heart is crossed; 

The gold of life is plastic 
And easily embossed. 

There is a pope in scarlet 
In yonder rags; 

Aha! 'tis but a varlet 

Whose dull avenger lags. 

Each man is perfect — truly, 
When all is found; 

No seed may harvest duly, 
Until it find its ground. 

Cologne Cathedral, June 20th, 1S91. 



^ 



THE COST OF SA VING. 65 

THE COST OF SAVING. 

''Some one has touched me, — touched my garment 
hem; 
For I perceive that power hath issued hence." 
There stayed the Christ midway, and journeyed 
thence 
To her just dropped from Jairus' diadem, — 
A virgin shining pure, worth living, gem 
Of Israel. Can Jesus recompense ? 
He may ? Who stopped him ? Dared such 
give offense? 
'Twas one impure, — and cured! He answers them: 
"Power hath gone out from me." O, thus began. 

Or thus continued. His atonement true. 
Drop after drop. His anguished heart gave man 

The life that saves, till death o'er anxious grew 
To meet Him face to face, with hell's dire clan. 

Then Christ gave all, and sin and death o'er- 
threw. 



66 ''LOVEr 



"LOVE." 

Two lovers stood beneath the trees, 

Drinking the night dews in; 
They heard no voice except the sea's, 

No music save its din. 

"Write in the new-ploughed ground," she said, 

"The word immortal, — Love" 
( Sweet Philomel in darkness sped, 

And saw it from above). 

His brawny hand grasped tight her own 

The word was written there; 
Then, without altar and alone, 

The lovers knelt in prayer. 



-LOVEr 67 

One day, from fields of ripened wheat, 

The tearful woman came 
To pray beside that word so sweet, 

And brood upon her shame. 

Another day the sounding sea 

Breathed harsh upon her face ; 

"Afar," she said, "on stranger lea 
My lover leaves this trace. 

He promised me to write it, — Love, 

On every new-found shore; 
And heaven may ne'er his soul reprove, 

A lover evermore." 



Untwisted by the sea's rough breath, 
Her hair fell round her shame; 

She knew not, yet a blast of death 
Sprang up at his dear name. 



68 ''LOVEr 

She started, and her open hand 
Let fall the gathered wheat. 

In every letter on that land 

Fell seeds for harvests meet. 



Far to her cot, assured of woe. 

Her fearful feet sped fast. 
Behind her was the tide's hoarse flow; 

The dream of love was passed. 

An autumn hour with red and gold, 

Saw calm beneath that tree 
A nestling babe. The mother cold 

Lay dead beneath the sea. 

Strong hands have touched the golden hair; 

Moist eyes, in ripened wheat, 
Read "Love" — and heard a mother's prayer 

To name her baby sweet. 



''LOVEr ( 

Each year "Love" grows from green to gold, 
Where still the billows moan. 

The child named "Love" with tears untold 
Goes praying there alone. 

Ostend, August loth. 



70 THE DIVINE STRUGGLE. 

THE DIVINE STRUGGLE. 

Why in the clefts deep-fissured, oft unseen, 

Hide beryl, amethyst, and crystal stream ? 

Why through the heavy skies, that wrathful 
seem, 
Swing myriad rainbows in the troubled sheen ? 
Why from the deep-ploughed furrows must men 
glean 

The yellow harvest of a spring-tide dream. 

Find on rough seas the unimagined gleam. 
Swift as a morning flashing in between ? 
Welcome the problems of life's eddied space, 

For ours is sonship higher than the stars. 
Ours the endeavor of an heavenly race, 

And ours to open where the soul unbars 
Those secrets whose immortal light apace 

Falls on the Throne, nor ever stains or mars. 

In the Alps, August ist. 



A MEMORY. 71 



( 



A MEMORY. 

Far through the night, with moon-drenched shroud 
and sail, 

Sped on the ship; the sailors whispered low. 
Lest once again might rouse the dying gale, 

Breaking the sapphire into liquid snow. 

Storm-swept, life's ship with silence finds a calm; 

Cloud-rack and billow melt before God's peace. 
While troubled sun-streaks bring a soothing balm; 

Naught floats above us save the white cloud- 
fleece. 

At Sea, August 24th. 



72 LIFE'S MUSIC. 



LIFE'S MUSIC. 



Sway with your breathed anthem, fir and pine, 
Each slender leaf a point within the flood 
Of surging majors, by all understood, 

Deflecting into minors, as the line 

Of harmony divides. Not less divine 

Than at the first, the melody. The good 
Of life is not less good because we would. 

And would in vain, enslave it to our shrine. 

Nay! flowing everywhither through the trees. 

The straight-sent breath of morning oft divides 

Against a spine; and yon Hesperides 

Feel, through their apple-orchard's waveless 
tides 

Of sweet, a music in the severed breeze 
Where deeper minor harmony abides. 



LIFE'S MUSIC. 73 

II. 

What truer melody abides with thee, 

O trembling plume of green, that crowns the 
height ? 

Shrill wrong that issues from impeded right? 
Time-currents severed from eternity, — 
As when a river urgent toward the sea. 

Pours shreds, when torn apart its main-stream 
bright; 

And every shred is useless, till from sight 
It fades within the darksome, oozy lea? 
Ah! shivering tuft of pine, I hear it, too, 

On all the high experience of life. 
Its sure refrain our stubborn fibres through 

Has swept like secret fiame, with wisdom rife. 
Through swaying branch and trunk, 'tis strangely 
true, — 

All deepest music is the child of strife. 
Weissenstein, July 25th. 



74 POEMS OF DA VI D GRA V. 



LINES WRITTEN IN A COPY OF THE 
POEMS OF DAVID GRAY. 

Foam-flecks of day on murmuring streams of life, 
Gloom woven thick with mist of silky white, 

Rare sounds of joy in waves of pain, a strife 

Subdued, a storm made beautiful with light! 

"Ah, nay!" thou sayest, weary of his wound! 

"These are but echoes of a fight still on, 
Wailed accents hiding in a worried sound, — 

The lustre of a day forever gone." 

Perhaps. Yet he believed the stars within the night 
Were pale with dawn; and he must sing his way 
to light. 



THE MINISTRY OF DESPAIR. 75 



THE MINISTRY OF DESPAIR. 

Into the garden of my life's delight, 

Trampling with clumsy feet its sweetest flower, 

Came gaunt despair, beneath whose cruel power 
The shivering lilies darkened, and in flight 
The white-winged singers left the hapless site. 

When, searching for the rootlets 'neath my 
bower 

With dull-eyed anger, that could only lower, 
He left the warm ground flowerless in his might. 
He dreamed not some were blossoms filled with 
seed. 

And so his haughty hand hath cleared the 
ground 
Of too thick growths, and filled the upturned mead 

With dearest germs that sorrow ever found. 
O brighter hope, how rich this dark-born deed! 

E'en now I hear the harvest music sound 



76 CONTRARIES. 

CONTRARIES. 

I. 

A lately reddened leaf went whirling through the 
first wild storm of snow; 

A faintly caroled song came floating o'er a mid- 
March, shrieking blast; 

A swiftly frozen drop fell gleaming to June's rose- 
warm breast below; 

Then chastely-moving death brought kisses to 
love's ardent lips and passed. 

II. 

A nameless care as old as time sat regent on the 

face of youth; 
A nascent glory like a dawning quickened in the 

eye of age; 
Dark wrong embraced the white-robed right and 

error crowned the brow of truth; 
Then One who breathed eternity called changeful 

earth His heritage. 



CONTRARIES. Tl 

III. 

Things are in process still; the segment-ends are 

these of circles bright 
Within the plane upturned today. The fiery circles 

move but slow. 
Things are in process; yet the troubled chord 

grows sweeter day and night. 
These be but hints of music from above dropped 

down to earth below. 



78 TRUE LOVE. 

TRUE LOVE. 

Sweeter than faith in morning's dewy bloom, 
Upsprung beside some faithless dogma's tomb, 
Comes from the ashes of a base desire 
Incense arising after faded fire. 

Dearer than kisses on impassioned lips, 
Or throbbings in the reaching finger tips, 
Are pressures of a woman's holy hands. 
When God, or love unblushing, understands. 

Ah, God is Love. His love must e'er enfold 
Each true love with a living cloth of gold. 

FRAGMENT. 

Thoughts crystallized in cool experience 
Are windows. Falling from enriching skies, 
A single liquid pearl of truth aslant 
Is broken into multitudinous gems, — 
Each smallest drop an orb of perfect truth. 



PASSION AND PRINCIPLE. 79 

PASSION AND PRINCIPLE. 

Behind the cold, dark steel where stubborn billows 

part, 
In low, tumultuous thunder throbs a fiery heart. 
At Sea, July loth, 1891. 



RAINBOWS IN BROKEN WAVES. 

As through a smitten wave whose summit breaks 

in spray, 
The shattered light finds paths, and myriad colors 

play; 
So, on the lawless crest of deep but broken dreams, 
Law lays the vast foundations of her realm with 

gleams 
Celestial, changeless with eternal change ; and 

they 
Are bright- walled pathways through the pathless, — 

God's swift way. 



NOTES 



I 



NOTES. 83 



NOTE I.— Page 9. 

" 'Phidias, the son of Charmides, the Athenian, made 
me,' was the proud but simple inscription, in which the 
sculptor was permitted to record for immortal memory 
this achievement,— one of the wonders of the world. The 
famous lines of Homer, describing the nod of Zeus, were 
the inspiration under which he wrought: 

'"This is the mightiest sign, for a clear, irrepealable pur- 
pose 

Waits an accomplishment sure, when the nod of my head 
is the token." 

So did he speak, and pausing he signed with his shadowy 
eyebrows ; 

And the ambrosial curls from the head everlasting were 
shaken. 

And at the nod of the king deep trembled the lofty 
Olympus.' 

Phidias, having completed his greatest works at 
Athens, removed, on a public invitation, with his most 
eminent pupils, to Elis, where he had a studio assigned 
him near the sacred grove of Altis. Here he began his 
most illustrious task, in 437 B. C, and finished it in four 
years. The style of sculpture was that called the Chrys- 
elephantine, or ivory and gold. The god was repre- 



84 NO TES. 

sented seated on a throne of cedar-wood, adorned with 
gold, ivory, and precious stones; crowned with a wreath 
of olive; holding a statue of victory in his right hand 
and a sceptre surmounted by an eagle in his left. The 
royal peplos, which covered the lower part of the statue, 
was of beaten gold, variegated with chased and painted 
figures. The throne and the platform on which it rested 
were richly adorned with painted and sculptured com- 
positions of mythological subjects, which were all enu- 
merated by Pausanias. The quantity of gold used 
was enormous. According to Lucian, each lock of hair 
weighed six minae. In the judgment of the ancients 
the statue stood at the head of all Hellenic art, and 
was regarded with superstitious veneration as the real 
presence of the deity in the material form. Elis be- 
came the sanctuary of peace; the clang of arms was 
never allowed to break in upon the sacred repose of 
the region blessed by the direct supervision of the king 
of gods and men. Livy says that ^lius Paulus, in his 
march through Greece, ' went up through Megalopolis 
to Olympia, where he was affected in his mind as if 
he had beheld Jupiter in present form, and ordered a 
sacrifice more magnificent than usual to be prepared.' 
The author of an epigram in the Anthology says : 
' Either the god descended from heaven to his form, 
or thou, O, Phidias, didst go up to* behold the god.'" — 
Feltoii, Ancient and Modern Greece. 

"An oracle addressed to Sulla combines beauty with 



NOTES. 85 

grandeur as the chief characteristic of this work. Diony- 
sius of Hahcarnassus praises in it its solemnity, grandeur 
and dignity. And still with all its grandeur it had perfect 
simplicity, as is shown by the effect it produced upon 
others, who were chiefly struck with the beauty and sweet- 
ness of the peaceful and benign god. Its effect upon the 
spectator was quite magical. Arrian and Dio Chrysosto- 
mos look upon it as a magic draught which banishes all 
care and pain. 'I think,' said the latter, 'that even a 
man who is quite cumbered in spirit, who in his life has 
drunk often of the cup of adversity and sorrow, and to 
whom the sweet solace of sleep never comes, — I think 
that even he, when he stands before this statue, forgets 
all the cruel and alarming accidents that beset the life of 
man. So happy hast thou (Phidias) been in inventing 
and contriving a spectacle that is simply 

Grief's cure, vexation's antidote, 
Making forgetfulness of every care. 

And such surpassing radiance and charm has thy art con- 
veyed to the work.' Plotinus says that ' Phidias has 
conceived Zeus in his imagination as Zeus would have 
been if he had appeared to him face to face.' But, 
finally, the most instructive and definite statement of the 
effect of the statue is given by Quintilian, when he says: 
' Phidias is held to be a greater artist in the fashioning 
of gods than of men, and his Zeus had even added to 
the existing religion a new elemen :, so closely does the 
majesty of the work approach the g )d himself.' 



86 NOTES. 

Cicero says that 'Phidias did not fashion his Zeus 
after any single man; but there had been in his mind 
some perfect picture of beauty which he had contem- 
plated, with which he had entirely filled himself, and 
which had directed his hand. But this image,' he says, 
' is nothing more than the Platonic idea, of which Plato 
says that it has no birth but is ever existing, and rests 
in the human reason and understanding.' " — IValdsteiyi, 
Essays oil the Art of Phidias, p. yj. 

NOTE II.— Page 9. 
"Socrates." Pausanias, Book I, ch. xii. 

NOTE III.— Page 10. 
Through Polygnottts eye. "Polygrotus held a rela- 
tion to Kimon similar to that of Phidiao to Pericles. In 
the work of Phidias there is evidence that he studied and 
knew the principles of pictorial art. Herein we may trace 
a general influence upon his youthful training exercised 
by Polygnotus." — IVa/dstein, Essays,/, dj. 

NOTE IV.— Page 10. 
"//<f banished all save Otie God from our thoughts^ 
"Anaxagoras declared that Phcebus himself, the great 
Delphian god, is nothing more than a glowing ball, which 
communicates its heat to the earth; that the moon, the 
Artemis of the Greeks, and the Isis of Egypt, is nothing 
more than another habitable earth, with hills and valleys 



NO TES. 87 

like our own; that there is but one God, the intelligent 
Mind which has given movement and form to the atoms 
of the universe, and which, though pervading and gov- 
erning all nature, is separate, and unmixed with any ma- 
terial substance. But bigotry was alarmed; Diopeithes 
procured a decree to be passed, that those who were 
guilty of denying the existence of the gods should be 
tried before an assembly of the people; and all the 
influence and eloquence of Pericles when at the height 
of his power availed only to procure the commutation of 
the sentence of death into banishment from Athens." — 
Felton, Ancicitt and Modern Greece, VoL i, p. 4^g. 

NOTE v.— Page ii. 
"So carve thou tJie gold." — Plutarch, Pericles, xxxi. 

NOTE VI.— Page 12. 
" The Pari/ienon." Perhaps it ought to be admitted 
that the building thus designated was not so named for 
a long time after the death of Phidias. It is quite impos- 
sible, however, to disengage it from its present name, 
even for the sake of literal accuracy. 

NOTE VIL— Page 17. 

" IVz'tk clamps and bars within Olympic Zeus." 

" That these statues were provided with a strong central 

bar of metal or mast-like beam of wood, fixed in the 

base and running up the whole height of the statue, 



88 NOTES. 

from which the thinner cross-bars, clamps, and chains 
branched out, is finally shown by the fact mentioned by 
Boctticher {Teiitonik, ii; p. 409) and quoted by Schreiber, 
that in the center of the masonry of the base upon which 
stood the Athene Parthenos there is now to be seen a 
cavity o'86 m. (2 ft. lYz in.) in length by 0*56 m. (i ft. 10 
in.) in width, in which no doubt the great central beam 
was fixed." — Waldstcin, Essays, p. 2S0. 

"And all the pavement in front of the statue is not of 
white but of black stone. And a border of Parian marble 
runs round this black stone, as a preservative against 
spilled oil; for oil is good for the statue at Olympia as it 
prevents the ivory being harmed by the dampness of the 
grove." — Pausanias, Book V, cJi. xi. 

NOTE VIII.— Page 25. 
Hegias, Ageledas. "His first teacher was the Athe- 
nian Hegias, the sculptor of the first group of the tyran- 
nicides Harmodius and Aristogiton, erected about 508 
B. C. His second teacher, and the one who probably had 
the greatest influence upon him, was the famous Argive 
sculptor, Ageledas. — Waldsteiti, Essays, p. 6j. 

NOTE IX.— Page 32. 
Euripides a?id Socrates. Euripides was also a dis- 
ciple of Anaxagoras; and such was the intimacy of Soc- 
rates with him, that the philosopher was reported to have 
given help in the writing of the tragedies of the former. 



NOTES. 89 

(Diog. Laertius, B. II, i8.) Socrates rarely visited the 
theatre except when the tragedies of Euripides were 
performed. — JEh'an, Var. Hist. L. II, ch. viii. 

NOTE X.— Page 36. 
''This JVord 0/ God."— Phaedo, 85 (Jowett i,434)- 

NOTE XL— Page 41. 
"Athene Promachos." "The Athene Promachos was 
fully armed, and if not actually in the attitude of ad- 
vancing upon her foe, her position was at least suggest- 
ive of her power to do so. Quite a different conception 
of Athene is presented in the statues belonging to the 
second period, in which Phidias appears first to have 
become himself and to have manifested the true spirit of 
his art. Here it is rather the peaceful and benignant 
side of the goddess that is brought forward." — Wald- 
stein, Essays, p. 6y. 



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